Sky Full of Elephants

Chapters 1-9 establish the three primary genres of the novel: speculative fiction, magical realism, and didacticism. The speculative fiction genre links to the event. Something fantastical and unreal occurs—white people suddenly start drowning themselves. This act of mass suicide introduces a surreal shift in the narrative that challenges the boundaries of reality and invites reflection on systemic oppression through an absurdist lens. At the same time, the novel retains realistic, grounding elements. It features real places like Howard University and actual cultural products, like the movie Titanic. As the novel revolves around systemic racism in the United States, it’s inevitably rooted in a realistic atmosphere. Before the event, Charlie is in prison, and in real life, a disproportionate amount of the prison population in the United States. The text suggests that a solution to healing Black trauma and advancing the world requires a bit of magic, making Black Trauma Versus White Guilt a tangible, active force that leads to the event.

The intersection of magical realism and speculative fiction in this novel amplifies the stakes of societal change—offering a fantastical approach to the radical deconstruction of oppressive systems. The focus on racism provides many teaching moments, and Campbell dictates them through his characters. Charlie tells Sidney, “[T]he world has tried to destroy me in every kind of way, but I am still here. So are you. So are a lot of good people. Ain’t no other people in the history of the world ever had so little of a serving of living as us” (70). Charlie educates his daughter and the reader about the traumatic history of Black people, hinting at why the event might have occurred. His resilience—despite his wrongful imprisonment—reflects a central discussion within the novel: the endurance of Black survival and self-determination in the face of systemic violence.

Sidney’s and Charlie’s characters struggle with their identities. Charlie doesn’t deny his Blackness, but he doesn’t know how to be Black and peaceful. In prison, he reads a definition of Black: “The absence of light. To be soiled. Hostile. Wicked. Devoid of the moral quality of goodness. Evil” (18). This internalized racism, shaped by systemic oppression, underscores the novel’s exploration of The Search for a Unified Identity. Charlie’s arc involves rejecting the white supremacist definition of Blackness and redefining it in a way that empowers him. Charlie must learn that he doesn’t represent such inimical traits. Sidney must discover that whiteness doesn’t define her. Concerning Blackness, the narrator states, “[S]he felt no WE-ness. No US-ness” (84). Sidney’s struggle highlights the difficulty of dismantling internalized racial constructs—her whiteness has shaped her worldview, but as whiteness itself dissolves, she is left without a stable foundation. In the first nine chapters, Sidney clings to whiteness and views Blackness as the other. Sidney’s denial of her Black identity emphasizes the psychological impact of living in a racially divided society, where identity is shaped by both internal and external forces.

The chapters about Vivian’s family appear in italics, giving the characters a mystical aura. Their precise context or roles aren’t clear until Chapter 20 when Charlie, Sidney, and Zu meet them, so the italics set them apart from the other characters, foreshadowing their roles in the event. This stylistic choice aligns with elements of magical realism, heightening the sense that Vivian’s family exists outside of traditional time and space. The lack of complete information furthers their sense of royalty. As a king, queen, and princess, they exist in a different sphere—they’re in a rarified world that isn’t immediately accessible. Their roles as visionaries tie into the novel’s broader exploration of Creating Holistic, Inclusive Systems. While the post-event world initially appears chaotic, Vivian and Hosea emerge as architects of a new social structure, suggesting that revolutionary change requires both destruction and deliberate rebuilding.

Black Trauma Versus White Guilt further manifests when Charlie asks Ethel why she thinks the white people drowned themselves, and Ethel answers, “I don’t know. Don’t make much sense trying to figure it out neither.” Yet when Charlie asks Ethel why she burned so much of the land, Ethel explains, “How anybody supposed to build a new life on top of so much cruelty and pain? If I could’ve, I would have burned it down to the bones of the world” (51-52). Ethel’s explanation of the event, as well as her burning of the land, reveals the cathartic and destructive nature of confronting historical trauma. The event is not just about the physical death of white people, but about cleansing the land that has been soaked in the pain of centuries of racial injustice. The quote also serves as an answer to Charlie’s first question. The white people died by suicide because they felt an unspeakable responsibility for the “cruelty and pain” they directly or indirectly perpetuated. Their collective self-destruction serves as a form of forced accountability, forcing the Black survivors to decide what kind of world they want to create in the absence of their oppressors. At Howard, Charlie showcases his dedication to a better society by trying to build a visible, sustainable power grid. His goal of creating a decentralized, renewable energy system serves as a metaphor for the broader reconstruction of a society free from exploitative structures.

In this section, the abruptness of the event establishes an atmosphere of disorientation, mirroring the characters’ struggles to understand the new world. This section also features the literary devices of foreshadowing and red herrings. Charlie’s knowledge of machines and radios hints at the role he’ll play in getting the machine in Mobile to work. This early foreshadowing not only builds suspense but also creates thematic resonance, as the machine itself becomes a symbol of collective power and the potential for societal rebuilding. At the same time, Campbell places many false clues. The narrator states, “One morning, every white person in America walked into the nearest body of water and drowned” (5). It is later revealed that not every white person is dead, and there’s a white colony in Alabama. This revelation challenges the initial premise, raising questions about race and survival in the novel’s world. This development is also a red herring because the colony is multiracial, with race morphing into an abstract idea. The blurring of racial boundaries in the colony calls into question the very concept of race as a fixed identity, aligning with the novel’s critique of essentialism and its exploration of the fluidity of identity.

Orange Beach symbolizes belonging, with Sidney viewing the space as a home for Agnes—her surviving family. Agnes’s note to Sidney reads, “I am leaving to go be with the other survivors in Orange Beach, Alabama. We are not all gone. We are not all gone” (75). The repetition in Agnes’s message suggests both a reassurance and a challenge. While Sidney interprets it as proof that she has a place among the white survivors, the novel ultimately challenges her assumption that racial identity determines belonging. Since Sidney identifies as white, she thinks her new place in the world is in Orange Beach, and her determination to go there propels the plot. Her journey is not just a physical one but a symbolic search for meaning in a world where whiteness no longer holds power. By the time she reaches the South, her perception of racial identity—and her own place within it—has fundamentally changed.